Days after an article in the Wall Street Journal proclaimed that "there's still a revolution going on in Iran" and challenged Obama to reassess his approach to Iran, the annual Iranian news expo in Tehran has become a locus of ongoing opposition demonstrations.The expo, which usually attracts only small crowds, showcases Iranian news media and international outlets with offices in Iran. This year the expo has been the site of heavy tensions between large crowds of opposition supporters and representatives of the largely state-owned media predominant in Iran. Opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi and Ali Reza Beheshti, a top aide to the favored opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, are both reported to have been roughed up at the event by pro-government supporters with a video of a disheveled Karroubi leaving the expo amid calls of "long live Karroubi" and "may Mousavi endure" circulating on Youtube. Mr. Mousavi himself is reported to have been prevented from entering the expo after unrest accompanied rumors of his imminent arrival.
The Wall Street Journal article calls for increased support from the US for democratic resistance in Iran and pulls together examples of pulled or redistributed funding by the US government for programs supporting democracy in Iran, alongside Obama's discussions with officials from Tehran, to paint a picture of hostility, or at least ambivalence, from the Obama Whitehouse towards the demonstrators. An article from the British newspaper the Guardian, published during the original opposition demonstrations, points to another side of the coin. Maybe Iranians don't want foreign intervention.
Indeed, I wrote an editorial on just this topic last week over on Bard Politik's online journal. When promoting US intervention in Iranian democracy we must always remember that this sort of intervention has a history which Americans may have forgotten but Iranians certainly have not. It was arguably the US supported overthrow of democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq back in 1953 which set Iran, by way of 20 more years under the Shah, on the path to the Islamic Revolution of 1978.
Still, even without US support, the Green Revolution in Iran is an important force which cannot be ignored in Iranian politics. On this count, the Wall Street Journal article is correct. Obama cannot afford to stick with policies he drafted and articulated prior to taking office, when it was still believed Iran harbored no significant opposition forces, without taking into account the events of this summer. It is a fine line for him to tred. The waiting game is not an option unless we resign ourselves to a nuclear Iran. On the other hand, simply working with Ahmedinejad's officials ignores changes and developments on the ground. The third, hopefully highly unlikely, option of an invasion of Iran is also further complicated by the presence of the dissidents and would be highly likely to nip the demonstrations in the bud before they have any real chance of developing further.
All of this said, Obama's current policy of negotiations with Iranian government officials may truly be the preferable option. In this way he leaves open the ability to adapt our policy if and when conditions in Tehran change while still, hopefully, stalling the possibility of a nuclear Iran. This policy, however, hinges on an awareness that things are changing on the ground in Iran and US policy will likely need to continue to adapt to accomodate this.
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